Postojna Caves in Slovenia

The largest cave in Europe is here. We have already driven for two hours and should be making it through the Croatian borders and into Bosnia by tonight. We visited the cave; it was an interesting experience. We were in there for more than three hours and we had to ride a train to get into its depths. The cave is 3 million years old and it has sedimentary formations – stalagmites and stalactites- of all shapes and sizes that have formed over hundreds of years. This cave was formed by a river eating into the soft limestone. It is at a constant temperature of 8 degrees Celsius all year round. A river runs under it and above it as well. It is one of nature’s wonders... Subhan’Allah.

A large tourist group with us in the cave came from Israel. Many of the women wore knee length skirts and small head scarves. Half the men wore skull caps. They twittered an Arabic-like sounding dialect, it was however incomprehensible to me and it had too many ‘kha’ sounds in it - Hebrew of course.

We talked to a friendly couple from Yemen. The man spoke Arabic fluently, his wife could only understand. We were both happy to speak to each other. They pretended not to know the meaning of the word Mizrahim- Arab Jews – as they told us they were forced to leave Yemen because of their religion. But then, they told us the “Ashkenazi” Jews – from Eastern European origins such as Poland and Russia who are also the bearers of the Zionist project – still treat them so badly because they are from Yemen. Yes, a contradiction in their narratives... but here it is from their own mouths: There is so much racism inside Israel among its different Jewish ethnic communities.

I saw a group of Mexican dancers at the entrance of the cave just before we entered. They were all dressed up in fancy clothing and so I asked them for a photo. As I thanked them and turned around to leave they held onto us. “We want a photo with you too,” they conveyed in broken English and sign language. They pointed at our scarves as they posed for the photo. I smiled to myself. I realized not all attention attracted by our scarves would be negative.



Postojna, Slovenia
6.22 pm

4/07/10

*it is Independence Day in the US today!